


Easy, Lucky, Free

by andchaos



Series: Holiday Fluff 'verse [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Fluff, Frottage, M/M, Making Out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 02:09:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1101143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andchaos/pseuds/andchaos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Obligatory holiday fic in which Dean encounters a cute boy in a coffee shop, and he even stays for Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Easy, Lucky, Free

**Author's Note:**

  * For [adri_cakes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/adri_cakes/gifts).



> For my lovely secret santa, Adri. Thanks for starting me off on this 'verse.

Dean Winchester was having what one might call a rough week.

          Currently, his most pressing concern was the immediate issue of the blizzard that added dead-stop traffic to the growing list of reasons that this morning made him want to go back to bed, a list that started with the fact that he’d run out of coffee yesterday and ended with the semi-truck that had splashed slush and ice into his boots while he was trying to break into his locked car. He hadn’t had the time to change, so he’d been forced to leak freezing water onto the floor of the Impala, which honestly was worse than the fact that he couldn’t feel his toes anymore, although the latter problem was making it difficult to drive properly. Not that the red minivan in front of him was giving him a lot of room to move.

          “Fuck!” He slammed his head back into the cushion of his seat, which had not yet absorbed enough of his body heat to be pleasant.

          Bobby probably wouldn’t write him up for being late—he was their best mechanic and pretty much Bobby’s adoptive son—but he didn’t want another verbal this week, and he only had five minutes to do a fifteen-minute drive and the soccer mom ahead of him didn’t seem overly intent on speeding up any time soon. Dean cursed again, flipping open his phone to check the time. He glanced out the window, back at the clock, then muttered “fuck it” and hit the turn signal. Late by ten minutes or late by twenty, he was still going to get yelled at. Might as well be properly awake. Maybe the traffic would let up somewhat by the time he was done with his detour.

          He pulled onto the side road, bumping the curb a little and viciously battling undirected fury. Hopefully the barista would be a dick, and he could release a little bit of his anger. He was already taking some of it out on his car, though the small amount of relief outweighed his regret as he kicked the door closed with wholly unnecessary force, zipping his coat up further and jamming his hands deep into his jacket pockets. He tried not to feel more resentment toward the universe that he had to remove one of his hands from his jacket to open the door, but the fight didn’t go too well and he shuffled morosely into the coffee shop, grumbling profanities at every deity his little brother had ever prattled on about during his one semester of religious studies.

          The line was long, and Dean slumped against the counter when he reached the back of it. He glared balefully at the group of teenagers clustered around the cash register, ordering long, complicated, custom-made drinks that had even the cheery barista furrowing his brow, as though second-guessing his decision to spend his life serving needy, fickle, bickering humanity. Dean flicked his gaze to the barista instead, huffing out an almost-amused breath at his shifting expression. His lips were quavering like he was sincerely attempting a welcoming smile, but he was failing radically; he was squinting at the group of happily shouting teenagers, trying to discern which order belonged to whom and what the fuck “23% ice” meant. Dean snorted. When the barista glanced at him, Dean properly took him in, and then their eyes locked so long that the tousle-haired boy with the brilliant blue eyes smiled, and Dean, still mildly grumpy (though his mood was improving every second), nodded in acknowledgement.

          Finally, the teenagers properly articulated their orders and moved away; Blue Eyes passed a small slip of paper over to his pretty red-haired coworker and turned to the next person in line.

          The queue moved slightly quicker after that, though not much. Dean tapped his fingers impatiently against the counter as he waited, and every time he did, Blue Eyes glanced up and quirked a half-smile at him.

          It was twenty past eight by the time he came level with the black-haired boy in the blue apron and the red t-shirt, and Dean’s grumpiness had returned in full force.

           “You’re in a bad mood,” stated the barista by way of greeting, tilting his head, apparently considering Dean thoroughly. It was an observation, not a judgment; his tone was free of accusatory lilts.

          Dean rolled his eyes. “No shit, Sherlock.” _Beautiful first words, Dean Winchester. Good job there._

          The barista’s brow furrowed. “It’s…My name is Castiel.”

          “Uhm, good for you? I’m Dean.” They stared at each other for a few seconds, each separately confused, and then the pieces slid into place. “Oh! No, I wasn’t…I wasn’t saying your _name_ was Sherlock. It’s from these books—well, they’re pretty famous—”

           “I don’t understand that reference,” said Castiel plainly, and for the first time all morning, Dean cracked a smile.

           “Yeah, I got that.”

          They were locked in some sort of strange standstill, just watching each other, assessing. Dean roved over his mussed black hair, bypassed the sharp blue eyes, and began to take in the rest of him: The black sword logo stitched into the corner of his red tee; the sweatpants hidden underneath the mandatory apron; the cross necklace; his toned arms, only lightly tanned in the wintery sunlight. They’d probably be darker in the summertime, and Dean was a little surprised at how badly he wanted to find out. His lips parted unconsciously. He didn’t know what he wanted to say, but it didn’t matter; someone behind him cleared his throat loudly, and the pair of them jumped. Castiel tugged on his collar and Dean spit out his order, stuttering slightly when he noticed the blush rushing up Castiel’s neck and covering his cheeks. It was weirdly…

           “That’ll be $3.25,” said Castiel, eyes boring once more into Dean’s, the tremor in his voice barely noticeable. “The wait should be about five minutes.”

           “Awesome. Thanks.” He tipped him a wink and moved away, making room for the irritable woman behind him, who had been tapping her foot for the past three minutes.

          He called Bobby while he waited, apologizing and hanging up with a, “Give me about twenty more minutes.” His name was announced over the intercom just as he ended the call, and he shoved his phone haphazardly into his back pocket as he strode forward to collect his coffee.

          He looked up when he reached the counter, pausing for just a split second when he noticed the precise oceanic shade of the eyes watching him over the coffee lid. Dean flashed him a half-grin as he accepted the drink.

           “Thanks, Cas,” he said, brushing their hands together intentionally on the warm surface of the cup, and he nodded jerkily, stoic as ever.

           “It’s Castiel,” he intoned. Not angrily, just factually.

          Somewhat nonplussed, Dean smiled anyway, said, “Take it easy, _Cas_ ,” and left the tiny coffee shop.

          The hand not holding the coffee was ice by the time he reached his car, and he struggled to clench his fingers around the door handle enough to actually get inside the Impala. Just as he managed it, however, someone called out, “Dean!” and he turned around with one foot inside and the other on the blacktop.

          Castiel pulled up short next to him, nearly slipping on the frosty pavement. Dean automatically reached out to steady him, his large, rough hand closing over Castiel’s forearm. They both froze, staring at the point of contact, and after way too many seconds, jerked apart.

           “I, uh, found your phone. You dropped it when you ran out,” said Castiel, offering the tiny object, and Dean automatically reached behind to check his empty back pocket.

           “Thanks,” he said gruffly, taking it. “You can’t imagine the shitty morning I’ve had.”

          Castiel actually smiled. “Oh yeah? What happened?”

           “Oh, you know. I locked myself out of my car, got drenched when I tried to get in, and I’m gonna be half an hour late to work. I am _not_ looking forward to the rest of today. God, I just want to go back to bed.”

           “Well, good things do happen, Dean,” he said, nodding toward the phone, and Dean laughed.

           “Not in my experience. But maybe things are looking up.”

          Castiel smiled his toothy smile, like a little kid who had just learned how to do it. It was filled with a strange mix of emotions, pleasure and expectation and subtler things, like snowfall after days of rain and the light that emanates from the angels atop Christmas trees. Not that Dean noticed stupid things like that.

          “I have to go, but…I’ll see you around, Cas.”

           “Goodbye, Dean,” he answered solemnly, and he stood on the pavement, just watching, while Dean drove away.

          He pulled up to work, very late and well aware of just how deep in it he was, but he hesitated before exiting his car. He scrolled through his messages, intending to text Sam that he was going to be home late to make up for the delay this morning, but paused partway through his contact list, fingers suspended over C. There were three letters there he didn’t remember putting in.

_Cas._

 

He barreled through his front door at eleven o’clock that night, rage returned in full force and then some. Over on the couch, Sam looked up from the textbook he was reading, young face clouded with concern.

          “You okay?”

          “No,” Dean grunted, yanking open the fridge and sorting through all of Sam’s fruity shit to get to the leftover pie in the back. “I had the worst day in the fucking _universe_. You know that douchey guy with the butterscotch addiction?”

          “The trucker or the one with the metal hand?”

          “No, not Captain Hook. Creepy Grandpa.”

          “You mean Bobby?”

          “Ha, ha.” Dean bit down so viciously into his pie that he bent one of the prongs on the metal fork. “Anyway, he dropped a fucking _wrench_ on my head while I was working on his damn car! He was like, _you’re too distracted Dean_ , and when I told him I was working as hard as I could, he fucking told me he needed it by two. _He moved his fucking time up three hours!_ Because he was pissed!”

          Sam considered this for a moment, brow furrowing as he frowned at the textbooks before him. “Well,” he said carefully, measured, knowing exactly how volatile Dean got, “ _Were_ you distracted?”

          “What? No!”

          “Oh yeah? Like you’re not distracted right now?”

          “What?” Dean looked down at where he had been stabbing his fork into the countertop instead of the plate. “Fuck! I’m pissed, _not_ distracted!”

          Sam laughed, falling back more comfortably onto the couch and propping his feet up on his law textbooks. “Yeah, yeah. Who is it today? Is she blonde? Is she taller than you again?”

          “Fuck off!”

          “Is that a yes?”

          Dean glowered at his brother for a full minute before relenting, pushing away his empty plate and dropping his head into his hands.

          “He’s shorter than me. Black hair.”

          “Weren’t you working all day? When’d you have time to meet him?”

          “Coffee shop this morning. S’why I was late.”

          Sam bit his bottom lip to repress a smirk playing around the edges of his mouth, and Dean knew that meant nothing good. “Oh yeah?” he asked in a sing-song voice, waggling his eyebrows. “And you’ve been thinking about him _all day_? Can’t get him out of your head, can you?”

          Dean glowered, wadded up his napkin, and chucked it across the room at his brother, spewing a line of profanities dirty enough to swipe away the last of Sam’s innocence, if living with Dean had left him any over the last four years.

          Sam laughed and threw it back, grinning like a fool, the bastard. “Did you get his number?”

          Dean was going to ship his brother off to the pound so could be with his own kind. “Yes.”

          He nearly flipped the faded-wood coffee table in his excitement and glee. “Did you call him?”

          Dean was going to throw his brother off a cliff so he could have the death he deserved. “No.”

          Fuck, Sam really had that kicked-puppy look down. He asked, “Why not?” for all the world as though it had been _him_ Dean was snubbing.

          “Shut up, Sammy.”

          “Are you gonna call him?”

          “Shut _up_ , Sam.”

          “You should call him.”

          “Alright,” said Dean loudly, clapping his hands together and standing up straight, “time for bed, kiddo.”

          “What?” shouted Sam, jumping to his feet. “No way! It’s like half past eleven! I’ve got six more chapters to read!”

          “Sam,” said Dean pointedly, moving around the counter and staring meaningfully at his brother. “Go to bed.”

          “I’m twenty-two, Dean!”

          “Sammy! I’m trying to fuckin’ call this guy, okay? Could you give me some privacy?” Dean was _not_ blushing. He wasn’t.

          Sam grinned suddenly, like a kid who’d been slipped extra candy canes at Christmas dinner. “Ohh, you’re calling your boyfriend? Sure, man, I’ll leave you alone. Have fun with the phone sex.”

          He dodged around the jab in the ribs Dean threw his way as he left the room, laughing raucously (and somewhat maniacally, in Dean’s opinion). Grumbling to himself, Dean pulled out his phone, trying to pull his good mood back to the surface. _Blue eyes, tousled hair, muscles, blue eyes._ He’d be fine.

          The callback tone was _Enya_ of all things, and Dean tried really hard not to judge him while breathy, high-pitched babbling sounded in his ear. Cas picked up after what Dean was almost positive was the second chorus, although it could have been an entirely different song and he wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.

          “Hello?”

          “Hey, Cas,” said Dean easily, leaning his elbows on the counter and smiling slightly. “It’s Dean. From the coffee shop this morning.”

          “Oh, hello, Dean. I see you found my number.”

          “You, uh, kind of left it in my phone,” Dean half-laughed. “Bad hiding place.”      

          “Yes, well. How else were you supposed to ask me out?”

          Dean blinked and stiffened. Most of his conquests—male and female—were never so forward. He relaxed again with a chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. “Huh, yeah, I guess so.”

          There was an awkward pause.

          “So?” ventured Cas eventually.

          “So what?”

          “Are you going to ask me out or not?” He sounded impatient, like Dean wasn’t living up to the high standards of intelligence Cas had placed on him.

          “Oh, right. You free tomorrow?”

          And then he was calm again, easy, like the changing of the seasons. “Of course, Dean. I get off at six.”

          “I’ll see you there,” said Dean, and, grinning like a fucking idiot, he hung up.

          Pleased with himself, Dean leaned back against the counter, fiddling absentmindedly with his cell. A ghostly laugh came from around the corner; Dean whipped around, and Sam had barely peaked out to shout, “Aww, aren’t you all cute and blushing?” before he jumped back with a yelp, dodging the full can of soda Dean had thrown, and retreated back to his room on quick feet.

 

Dean woke the next morning to a light snowfall.

          He hummed while he poured extra sugar into his coffee and shrugged on a red flannel over his white Henley, then tossed a jacket over them both. The entire time, he pointedly ignored his little brother, who was alternating between incredulous looks and hardy snickers. Dean didn’t know which was worse, so he settled for apparent indifference, and then hitting Sam on the back of the head when he walked out.

           “Jerk!” came the indignant interjection, already behind him.

          Dean grinned. “Bitch,” he called back, and then shut the door quickly.

          He barely had to turn on his windshield wipers on the drive to work, although Baby had a light dusting of white when he pulled into the garage of the Salvage Yard, set apart from the customer service entrance and exclusively for the employees in rough weather (and, realistically, for Dean any time of year). He had started singing on the ride over, and was still mumbling Metallica under his breath as he got out of the car and locked the door behind him. He only stopped when he turned around and came face-to-face with Benny, who was watching him with disbelief and the faintest amount of concern.

           “What’s happening, brother?” asked Benny carefully. Dean laughed, which only made the lines in Benny’s forehead deepen.

          Dean clapped his friend on the back. “Don’t worry about it, man. It’s, uh…It’s gonna be a good day.”

           “What?”

          Dean just flashed him another smile and strode past him into the garage, rolling up his sleeves, but he hadn’t done anything more than clock in when Bobby stuck his head out of his office and shouted,

           “Hey, boy! Get in here, I need to talk to you for a second.”

          Assuming this was about his lateness yesterday, for which Bobby had never properly reprimanded him, Dean entered the office with slight trepidation.

          “No need to look so nervous,” said Bobby gruffly, giving Dean a once-over as he shut the door and then walked around to the other side of the desk, sitting down opposite. “You’re in a good mood,” he added.

          Dean shrugged.

          “Well?” asked Bobby impatiently. “You gonna elaborate, or are we gonna sit here all day playing Twenty Questions like two tweens at a sleepover?”

          “What? I’m not allowed to be happy?” Dean asked, spreading his hands, mildly offended.

          Bobby squinted at him. “You’re never happy. We’ve kind of come to expect that from you.”

          “Woah, woah, woah. I’m always in a great mood!”

          “Are we…talking about the same Dean Winchester?”

          “Fuck you.”

          “Mind your tone, boy,” said Bobby gruffly, but he was smiling. “Just…tone it down a little. You’re frightenin’ the others.”

          Dean frowned. “I haven’t even _seen_ any customers yet,” he objected.

          “I was talking about Benny,” said Bobby, and Dean laughed.

          “Fine, fine, I’ll try not to be happy, old man.” Dean rolled his eyes as he lifted himself out of the chair. “Oh, and Bobby, I need to get off at five today. That okay?”

          Bobby raised his eyebrows. “You just got here. Where’s the fire? Sam’s okay, ain’t he?”

          Dean waved him off, trying not to show how pleased he was that Bobby understood about Sam. “No, he’s fine. He’s good. I, uh…I’ve got a date. I’m supposed to be meeting him at six, and I need to...”

          “I don’t want to hear about your pre-coital ritual,” Bobby interrupted, a disgusted look crossing his face. “Just…Go work.”

          “Does that—?”

          “Yeah, yeah, go have your little play date. Now leave an old man alone, I’ve got work to do.”

          Bobby was a fucking grouch, but Dean loved him anyway. “You’re the best, Bobby. See you later.”

          “Don’t I know it,” muttered Bobby as Dean left, and Dean didn’t know which part he was referring to, but he chuckled anyway, and when he looked up Benny was watching him from across the garage with a disturbed expression.

          Six customers yelled at him, Pam spilled oil all over his jeans, and Rufus threatened to murder him nine times, but Dean was in a good mood all day regardless. He clocked out fifteen minutes late, because one angry customer threw a crowbar at him and nailed him in the shoulder, and he had to bodily escort her from the premises and then Bobby insisted on patching him up, but he still had plenty of time to make it home for a shower before he had to leave to meet Castiel.

          The light snowfall from the morning had intensified over the course of the day, but was not so bad that he couldn’t drive comfortably. He turned on the window defroster and made it home in record time, since everybody else was avoiding the roads. Unlike Dean, they were evidently afraid of a little iciness. He pulled into the parking lot of his apartment building at half past five, recognizing that he’d be cutting it very fine. Sam wasn’t home yet—he had a four o’clock class on Fridays—so he left the bathroom door open in his haste, barely taking time to shut the curtain as he turned the water on full blast. He was in and out in less than five minutes, and rifling through his dresser in another—he had a hard time finding jeans that weren’t worn, ripped, or stained, but managed to dig plain black slacks out of his closet, as well as a black blazer to throw over the plain white shirt so that it might look moderately presentable. He scrawled a note to Sam reminding him of his whereabouts, taped it to the refrigerator, and grabbed his car keys off the hook next to the door as he ran out, making sure to lock the apartment behind him.

          The Impala took three tries to start correctly, with Dean’s desperation and aggressiveness growing with each twist of his keys. The snowfall had increased slightly even in the short time since he had last been on the road, and it was sticking, but not particularly icy—though the road was still slippery from the frost from yesterday, and he almost skidded into the curb turning into the parking lot. He pulled into the same spot as yesterday, right in front of the entrance. The bell over the door tinkled when he walked in, just as the clock struck six. Dean glanced around the shop and spotted Cas almost immediately.

          He was in a red sweater today, with some sort of design on the front that was mostly obscured by his usual apron. The same silver cross from yesterday was adorned around his neck, and his hair was slightly tamer than yesterday, though still not fifties-style pristine. He was wearing glasses today, thinly black-rimmed and square and slipping down slightly. He appeared to notice this at the same time as he tried to cap off his customer’s drink, resulting in a splash of cream on his nose as he pushed them back up the bridge in the same movement as pressing a lid onto the cappuccino in his hands. Dean noticed this and laughed; Cas looked up at the sound, his eyes falling on Dean immediately, his face splitting into a wide smile like snowflakes and icicle lights and cinnamon-sprinkled eggnog. He gave a little wave; Dean started to return the gesture, but was aborted as someone stepped directly in front of him and said loudly,

          “Sorry, eye candy, we’re closed.”

          Dean started, refocusing on the man in front of him. “I—”

          “Crowley, relax,” interrupted Cas, rolling his eyes, handing his customer the drink, and untying his apron as he stepped out from behind the counter. His sweater came into full view—a revolting knitted thing with a reindeer on the front, Rudolph more specifically, if the big, three-dimensional cotton red nose was any indication. Dean raised an eyebrow. Cas met him with a challenging stare. After a moment of this, he apparently decided to ignore it; he turned back to Crowley and said, “This is Dean. Dean, this is my charming coworker, Crowley.”

          Dean set his mouth, not altogether enchanted. “Hi, there.”

          “Pleasure.” Crowley walked back to the other side of the counter, patting Cas on his shoulder as he moved around him. “I’m impressed, Castiel. When you told me about your hot date tonight, I didn’t expect him to be so…sexy.”

          “Stop that,” said Cas sharply. “That’s rude, for one thing. And…harassment.”

          “According to whom?”

          “We had a seminar on it.”

          Dean had tuned out fairly early on in this conversation, having already decided that he didn’t like Crowley much. He was focusing wholeheartedly on Cas’s lips, which did unconsciously sensual things when he formed letters, and were slightly chapped in a weirdly endearing way. Dean was super busy considering Cas’s mouth—so engaged, in fact, that Cas needed to repeat himself twice before Dean realized he was talking to him.

          “Sorry, what?” asked Dean, eyes flicking up to Cas’s.

          Cas watched him knowingly. “Are you ready to go, Dean?”

          Dean’s insides definitely did _not_ spiral and interlace whenever Cas said his name. “Yeah.”

          Cas left Crowley to dispel the last few patrons and lock up. He gathered his jacket from a cupboard behind the counter and draped it over his arm, a big tan trench coat that Dean tried not to question. He tripped his way to Dean’s side and looked expectantly up at him; Dean grinned and went to move for the exit, but before he could stop himself he had swiped his finger across the tip of Cas’s nose, where the cream was smudged.

          “Missed something,” he said cheerfully, licking it away from his own skin. Cas stared intently at the movement, and Dean flushed. Crowley gave a low whistle.

          “Fuck off,” said Dean absentmindedly, not turning to look at him. He instead went to hold the door for Cas, who passed him with a gracious nod, and if Dean’s hand lingered a mite too long on the small of his back as he led him through, well, neither of them said a word.

          Cas slid his hand admiringly over the roof of the Impala as they crossed to the passenger side, and Dean was secretly pleased at the apparent approval of his baby. He held the door open and shut it behind him, too, then got into the driver’s seat. Metallica came on automatically as he was pulling out onto the main road, as it was the last (and one of the only) tapes to which he actually listened, and Dean flinched; he remembered Cas’s apparent fascination with more new age music, and was not really in the mood to flip out over music choice in the first five seconds of a first date, but blessedly Cas said nothing about the classic rock.

          They drove in silence for a song and a half, and then Dean could no longer stand the absurdly potent feeling of eyes on his profile.

          “Why are you staring at me?” he asked, still watching the road, and speaking up so suddenly that Castiel jerked back a little in his seat.

          “Where are we going?” Castiel asked in lieu of an answer, like maybe he didn’t have one, or maybe his reason was too embarrassing to concede. He wasn’t blushing, though, when Dean chanced a look out of his peripherals.

          He allowed the digression. “A bar just off Vetala Street.”

          “Oh.”

          Dean glanced at him. “Oh?”

          “Oh,” Castiel repeated, shrugging.

          “Is that…do you not want to go there? Because I can take you somewhere else—”

          “Oh, no!” said Castiel, shaking his head. “I’ve just never gone down Vetala Street. Isn’t it full of…people who are…less than desirable?”

          “Nah, trust me. I go down there a few times a week. It’s one of the safest streets around, and everyone’s crazy nice. Even to new folk like yourself. That stupid stereotype just comes from the fact that most of the clientele are drifters, but they’re not dangerous.”

          Castiel shrugged, not like he was merely conceding, but like he honestly believed him. “Okay. If you promise.”

          “I promise,” said Dean, winking at the reindeer-sweater boy in his passenger seat. They both settled back into a comfortable silence, although Cas resumed his previous activity of determinedly watching the side of Dean’s face. He tried not to let it bother him.

          They turned onto the dark street three and a half songs later, twenty minutes of quiet small talk about Cas’s penchant for ugly sweaters and Dean’s strange and very evident obsession with classic rock. Dean was just walking him through the more meaningful lines throughout Death Magnetic when they pulled into one of the spaces designated for their destination. Cas left his trench coat on his seat as they got out. Dean held open the door for him, and when they both walked inside, he loudly proclaimed, “Welcome to The Roadhouse!”

          While Cas was looking around in apparent appreciation, the two women behind the bar looked up in recognition of Dean’s voice, and the younger of the two set down the bottle she was holding and made her way out from behind the bar. She came over to them, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet and tying up her hair as she went.

          “Hi guys!” she said cheerfully when she reached them, her smile blinding but teasing, and Dean didn’t trust it at all. “Dean, you need to stop bringing a different guy here every night. It’s getting embarrassing.”

          “Fuck off, Jo,” replied Dean with equal joviality, though his was pleasantly false. “She’s kidding, Cas.”

          “Cas?” she asked, interested, turning to him and pushing loose hair behind her ear.

          “Castiel,” he corrected, standing unnaturally motionless and slightly behind Dean, still in the entryway.

          “Hi there, Castiel, I’m Jo. Can I show you guys to your table?”

          “Yes, thank you,” said Castiel, and Dean flipped a grin at him over his shoulder. Jo smiled indulgently, too, and they followed her through the dark, crowded room, wending around tables to their own booth against the back wall, set next to a window and the bar for easy access to a view and a drink. Dean did come here a lot.

          “Your regular table,” said Jo, and they sat down on opposite sides of the booth as Jo pulled out a notepad. “The usual, Dean?”

          “Could you actually give us a minute? Cas has never been here before.”

          “Sure thing. What about beers?”

          “Ah, Jo,” he said affectionately, “You know I can’t turn down a good beer. A bottle of your mom’s special, then. Cas?”

          “I’d love to try one,” he said hesitantly.

          Jo nodded at the pair of them and retreated to her previous station. Dean turned back to Cas, who was once again watching him intently. Dean didn’t mind it as much when he could freely look back.

          Jo returned before they managed to stop staring at each other long enough to form a sentence, and she winked as she set down the bottles. As she put down Dean’s beverage, she leaned close enough to pass her lips by his ear and murmur, “Stop with the eye-sex and say something, you freak!”

          Dean mouthed soundlessly for a few seconds as Jo laughed and walked away. Cas tilted his head questioningly, but when Dean finally regained motor control he shook his head forcefully.

          “What’s the matter?”

          “Nothing, Cas. Nothing.” He was so going to kill Jo. “You tried the beer yet? Ellen makes it herself. Best drink I’ve ever had.”

          “It’s very good. Low in alcohol content.”

          It wasn’t a complaint, just an observation, but thinking of the implication, Dean laughed—loudly. Over at the bar, both Harvelles glanced in his direction. “Why, Cas, are you trying to get me drunk so you can have your way with me?”

          Cas furrowed his brow and frowned slightly. “How could you get drunk off of one beer?”

          Dean stared at him, unsure if he was joking. “Are you saying you want a round of vodka shots?”

          “I think that might leave you more incapacitated than me. I can, as the saying goes, hold my liquor.” Castiel quirked his lips into what Dean would call a half-smirk if he didn’t know better.

          “Is that a challenge? Are you trying to go shot for shot with me?”

          “Dean, stop trying to get your dates blackout so you can feel them up in the bathroom,” Jo interrupted whatever Castiel was about to say as she approached the table again, pen in hand. “You guys ready to order yet?”

          She left with instructions for Dean’s steak and Castiel’s cheeseburger, and the boys returned to what was quickly becoming their usual pastime of staring at each other, seemingly speechless with something that was far from awkwardness. Cas had more shades of blue in his eyes than Dean had originally recognized.

          Cas’s thoughts seemed to be following a parallel track. “Dean, did you know that your eyes are like miniature galaxies?” he asked matter-of-factly, taking a pull of his beer. It sounded like a line, except he seemed completely sincere in his inquiry. Like he wanted to know Dean’s detailed history of received compliments to make sure that he was getting the proper attention.

          “I haven’t heard that, actually,” he said slowly, trying to keep the red off his cheeks. “I got ‘holding sunshine’ once, does that count?”

          “I think it’s bigger than the sun,” Cas mused, and as he said it, his foot edged ever so slightly between both of Dean’s, who shifted to accommodate him. “More like supernovas, constantly erupting, in a never-ending implosion of matter and electricity.”

          Dean actually did blush that time, his entire face heating and tingeing a shade darker than his usual color, nearly unnoticeable. He didn’t have a response to that.

          “So,” he coughed out, still mildly embarrassed at the intensity with which Castiel studied him, and searching wildly for a new topic of conversation, “How’d you end up making lattes?”

          Cas ran a finger around the rim of his bottle, humming lightly and apparently acting absentmindedly, while the foot he had between Dean’s started a slow slide up his calves.

          “I was in the army, actually,” he said, huffing out an unamused chuckle. “My dad had insisted since I was a child, and I never really considered another option. There wasn’t one. I enlisted as soon as I was of age and trained for awhile, but…well, I don’t like authority much. I was on the fast track, too, everyone said I’d make a fine general. I left nearly four years ago, tried to go back to school. It’s hard for a twenty-four-year-old to go to college though, you know? I mean, I got accepted because I was technically ex-military, and it looked really good for their diversity quotas, but everyone was always so…uptight around me. I just looked like an authority figure, and they couldn’t see anything else. So I quit that, too.” He laughed mirthlessly again. “If my father hadn’t left when I was a kid, he would’ve blown a gasket. Told me I quit everything I try and won’t amount to anything, you know.”

          Cas looked down, drumming his fingers on the table. Dean reached across instinctively, trapping Cas’s hand underneath his own, rubbing his thumb against his wrist.

          “Free will ain’t the same as quitting,” he insisted quietly, but with passionate seriousness, and Cas looked up with a grateful half-smile.

          “Yeah,” he breathed out, running his free hand through his hair.

          “So you set up shop in the coffee business?” Dean prompted, now running his own leg against Cas’s wayward one.

          “No, actually. I started traveling. I went cross-country, visiting every state. I got bored, though. Turns out I really like learning. So I went back to Illinois—where I grew up—and lived with my sister and youngest brother for awhile, they were the only ones left in the house.”

          “How’d you end up in California?”

          “I’m studying Latin part-time, but mostly I’m into academia. I want to be a professor some day; the barista gig is just to pay for university, since I’m doing it myself.”

          “I went to university,” Dean volunteered, and when had his foot traveled far enough up test the inseams of Cas’s jeans? Which, by the way, were tighter than he had initially calculated—to make up for the bulkiness and general formlessness of the sweater. “Not for long. It was the local place, Kansas State, not far from my hometown. I left, too. My…my brother’s the smart one. We moved here after he got into Stanford. My dad sort of…disowned him, because he didn’t want to get into the family business. It didn’t really matter. Sam had a full ride and location’s all the same to me. Call it a show of solidarity, but I decided to set up shop here.”

          “What do you do?”

          “I work for a family friend. Well, he’s sort of a father figure to me. My dad wasn’t around a lot when I was little, we were on the road all the time and he was always working. This guy, Bobby, he owns a salvage yard close by.”

          Cas’s expression of mixed sympathy and intrigue was heavily offset by the fingers he had laced through Dean’s and the hand he was running up his arm. Suddenly, the table seemed much too wide. And the room was increasing steadily in temperature.

          “Move aside, boys, there’s food in your future,” announced Jo. She nudged them aside as she set down their plates, and they hastened to untangle their limbs to make room, although their legs were still inextricable underneath the wood surface.

          Cas dug into his cheeseburger without reserve—well, more like wholly indecent enthusiasm—coating the meat in liberal amounts of ketchup beforehand. Even Jo stared for a few seconds before returning to herself with a shake of her head and walking away back to her mother. Dean watched in unrestricted amazement, because _damn_ , this boy had some serious intensity, and he was giving this cheeseburger as much concentration as Dean was giving him. Cas seemed suddenly unaware of his presence, and the noises were a little obscene. He ate half of his dinner before he tuned back into his surroundings, looking up at Dean with a bizarrely and suspiciously smug expression. Never breaking eye contact, every movement deliberate, he brought his index finger to his mouth. It slid between his lips, which stayed just parted enough for Dean to track every movement of his tongue as it slid around his finger, cheeks hollowing as he sucked it clean. Still watching him, Cas removed his index finger and repeated the exercise with the rest of them. Dean was pretty much gaping at the end of this little show; one hand had slid into his hair and the other was clenched on his thigh, and his feet had resumed their trail up Cas’s leg, though with a noticeably increased pace.

          “Not eating, Dean?” he asked, too innocently, nodding toward his untouched steak.

          “I’m not hungry,” Dean muttered, throat too dry, his tongue suddenly overly evident in his mouth.

          “That’s a shame,” he said nonchalantly, “the food is truly amazing.” He thus resumed his over-eager consumption of his burger.

          Dean managed to look away long enough to pick up his cutlery and begin carving into his own dinner, but even as he began to eat, his eyes immediately went back to tracking every movement of Cas’s, who was all too aware of exactly what he was doing.

          They finished their meal in a hyper-tense silence, both watching each other intently. From the looks Cas kept flicking his way, Dean was, apparently, eating his steak in much the same fashion that Cas was consuming _his_ meal, although Dean didn’t see how anything he was doing unconsciously could possibly reach that level of diabolical sensuality.

          Jo swooped down on them almost as soon as they finished, and, knowing how Dean usually handled these matters, passed him the check directly. She kissed his cheek as they left and then retreated back behind the bar to whisper swift and likely obscene things to her mother, if the way they looked after the pair of them and laughed were any indication. Dean ignored them pointedly as he followed Cas through the door and they ran to the car; the snowfall had reached nearly blinding levels, and he turned on the wipers and the heater before even shifting into drive.

          They were halfway down Croatoan Lane, almost passing the turnoff to where Cas worked, when the car started to stall. Just a little, at first, a quick jerk and then it was running full-speed again, but it was enough.

          “Oh, fuck.”

          “This isn’t good,” Cas observed, and Dean turned towards him. He wasn’t sure whether to laugh derisively or amazedly.

          “Probably not,” he concurred, patting the steering wheel—more to reassure the car than his passenger. “It’ll be fine, alright? Nothing to do but keep driving.”

          Cas nodded, not altogether reassured.

          They managed another few streets. Dean was having a hard time concentrating, between the heavy snow and the “Dean, I don’t think this is a shortcut” every few minutes. He’d just snapped, “It’s a shortcut, Cas, come on! Trust me!” when the Impala stopped completely, and he blinked in shock, revving the engine a few more times. Cas leaned over and wiped a clear patch on the window.

          “You said we were about to turn onto Rougarou Avenue, didn’t you?”

          Dean whipped his head around. “Yeah, in half a mile. Why?”

          Cas was inordinately calm, considering the situation. “Because we’re next to the sign for Lenore Street.”

          “ _What_?”

          “Look.” Cas pointed out the window with one hand, the other fumbling around in the pockets of the trench coat still strewn across the seat. He came up with a pair of something red and knitted while Dean peered across him out the glass, trying to remain calm and self-assured while simultaneously reassessing where they were.

          “You don’t have any idea where we are,” sighed Cas, resigned, un-accusatory, pulling on bright scarlet mittens and rubbing his hands over his thighs. “And your car’s dead.”

          He was factual, detached. Dean tried not to let his easy temper flare.

          “Not dead, just stuck. But yeah, that pretty much sums it up,” he sighed, jerking the keys out of the ignition to reserve fuel. “I don’t suppose you’ve got cell service out here?”

          “Why?” Cas deadpanned. “Do you intend to kill me and you’re hoping no one can trace the body?”

          Dean hesitated for a split second, and then burst out laughing, the sound too loud in the quiet car, where even the air seemed motionless. He laughed so long that Cas actually joined in, and it was a surprising sound, but one like candy canes and hailstorms and bell chimes, even though he was dressed up in a reindeer sweater and blindingly bright mittens and jeans tight enough to make Dean bite his lip if he thought about it too long. Actually, he retracted any harsh comments about the last garment.

          “I guess I’ll call Sammy then,” Dean said when he regained control, though comparatively, the smile did not die from Cas’s face. “Give me a sec.”

          He turned and pushed against the door—it didn’t budge. He furrowed his brow and pushed harder—nothing.

          “Are you _screwing_ with me,” he said, slamming back once against the headrest and then deflating. “Alright, nevermind.”

          He made the call from inside the car, relaying the plea for help and quickly hanging up. In the short minute or so that he spoke to his brother, Cas had leaned forward, peering up through the front windshield, breath fogging the glass as childlike wonder blossomed across his countenance; he might as well have never seen snow before. Dean hung up and turned to him, and, vulnerable though it might make him, he permitted a small smile to soften his features.

          The silence persisted for a full minute, before Cas suddenly murmured, “Do you ever marvel at the snowfall?”

          Startled at the question, Dean could come up with no quicker answer than, “What?”

          “The snowfall,” Cas repeated, still entranced by the white flakes outside. “Every individual one unique, all falling to earth, mixed up in a complex dance like they don’t care that they’re different. You know, I can’t drive in the snow, not personally. Especially not at night. The speed of the car blows all the flakes at the windshield, and I feel like I’m tumbling through space…a whirlwind…to oblivion…”

          Dean blinked at him. Cas suddenly looked up, his head tilting curiously again. He probably didn’t even register how strange he sounded, or that his words were unorthodox for casual conversation. Or philosophical conversation, realistically.

          “What?” he asked, voice still quiet, and tinged with an ethereal edge.

          He didn’t know what he was about to say before he said it, but suddenly he blurted out, “When I was a kid—on the road all the time, you know—my brother and I used to play this game. My dad would be driving and we’d bet on which flakes would hit our windows, and then pretend we were making them melt just by watching them. We used to, uh, take bets on which would reach the bottom first.”

          Cas half-smiled, like he was playing a game, and also like he was determined to win. “My brothers and sister and I used to breathe out in the cold and pretend we were dragons. We wanted to see who’d be the most powerful based on whose fog went out furthest.” He chuckled suddenly. “It always ended in a fistfight between Michael and Luke.”

          Dean leaned a little closer. He was, after all, a little cold with the heater off.

          “It’s you, your sister, and your two brothers, right?” Dean asked, voice quiet.

          “I’ve got another brother,” Cas corrected, tilting his head slightly so that it bumped infinitesimally against Dean’s, “Named Gabriel. And his girlfriend Kali is over so often that I might as well count her, too.”

          Dean let out a low whistle. “That’s a big family.”

          Cas shrugged. “It’s not overly crowded, but they’re all rambunctious and…quirky. Well, more idiosyncratic and mildly insane, but I didn’t want to paint them in too bad a light before you knew anything about them.”

          “Bigger than my family,” Dean answered softly. They were close enough that their arms were brushing and Dean was a little busy purposefully leaning more into the touch while trying to make it seem like he wasn’t that he was having trouble continuing.  “It’s just, uh, me and my brother nowadays.”

          Cas’s fingers had found a thread on Dean’s sleeve. They turned a little more toward each other, noses almost brushing. Cas let out a shaky breath.

           “You should tell me about him sometime.”

           “Yeah,” Dean murmured back. And he could see every millimeter of Cas’s face, every shade of the infinite blues of his eyes… “Sometime, maybe—”

          When their lips met, it was like fire on the ocean: scorching hot, electrical in his veins, and he couldn’t breathe; he felt like he was drowning, and the water was Cas’s scent and skin and then tongue, too, when Dean shifted to the side, pushing closer and twisting tendrils of his hair between his fingers, slightly above him as he opened his mouth with his own and trailed his free hand down his clothed side.

          Cas hummed against his lips and twisted his left hand into Dean’s jacket, his right braced against the seat to steady him as he turned in place, one leg sliding onto the seat, knee bent, and Dean released Cas’s hip in favor of the back of the front seat, for leverage as he lifted himself onto his knees, sliding into the gap between Cas’s legs and pushing him back; he moved back against the window without fight. Safely propped up against the door, Cas took his hand, still mitten-covered, off of the seat and settled it over the junction between Dean’s shoulder and his neck, palming over his collarbone. The hand not in Cas’s hair slammed into the window with a heavy thud at the same time that Dean bit down on his bottom lip, and it was too rough and too hard but Castiel moaned against him and dug his nails in as best as possible with three layers of fabric between them. At the sound, Dean pressed closer, Cas’s arm wrapping around his back, and he pressed his hand under Cas’s horribly dorky sweater, slipping across hot skin, pushing it up toward his chest. When Castiel shivered at the sudden intrusion of cold, Dean matched Cas’s previous moan for volume and intensity. His fingers scraped over his hips, and he looked down.

          Dean pulled back suddenly, their bodies still pressed together, and Cas looked up at him with wide, hungry eyes. His mouth was red and open, a temptation and a question. Dean’s fingers danced across the black ink underneath them, and Cas repressed another shiver—this one not from the cold.

           “Cas,” Dean murmured, leaning forward so that his mouth ghosted over Cas’s ear. He pressed his lips against Cas’s neck instead of continuing, mostly losing track of what he’d want to say anyway as he pressed his tongue against the soft skin under his ear and scraped his teeth along the scruff on his jaw line. Cas made an aborted noise somewhere between a whine and the beginning of a sentence.

           “What was that?” asked Dean, chuckling, never fully pulling back so that Cas could feel every undulation of his lips as he spoke.

           “You—You were saying something?” he gasped out, hands stuttering in their path across Dean’s still-clothed back and sides.

           “Was I?”

           “Just my name, I think. You—you found my tattoo—”

          Dean pulled back and looked him directly in the eyes, searching for something. Cas didn’t know what, but he stared back, and after awhile Dean smiled and flicked his eyes down to the black ink marks etched into the skin over Cas’s hip, half hidden by his tight black jeans. Dean sat back a little, just enough to properly track his hands’ way across the markings. They were clearly letters of some sort, but he didn’t know the meaning, didn’t even recognize the alphabet.

           “What does it mean?” he asked, quiet voice clear in the silence.

          Cas pushed a hand through Dean’s hair, reverently watching him examine the tattoo. “It’s Enochian,” he answered, slightly breathless. “Literally, it means, ‘The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.’ Practically, it’s supposed to ward off evil.”

           “What kind of evil is after you?” He tried hard to keep the teasing mockery out of his voice.

          Cas laughed, nodding like Dean had made a riveting and irrefutable argument. “My mother inscribed it above the mantel when I was a child. She was…well, the most religious out of us all. I think she actually expected Satan to descend in the night and corrupt us all.” He suddenly tugged hard on Dean’s hair, dragging him closer, so now Cas’s lips were against Dean’s jaw instead of the other way around. His words drifted lazily through the air to Dean’s ear, curling through him and settling, heavy and searing, in his stomach. “But I didn’t need help with corruption.”

          Cas tugged again, slamming their mouths together and swallowing Dean’s gasp. It was a messy and completely artless kiss; Dean’s nose bumped into Cas’s glasses about four times in a minute, Cas bit down on Dean’s bottom lip and then dragged his tongue across the roof of his mouth, and Dean’s grip on Cas’s hips tightened almost too much. Dean pulled away from Cas’s face and ignored the answering keening protest in favor of pressing open-mouthed kisses down his neck, and bruising kisses into his collarbone, and more kisses down the skin underneath where his sweater was pushed up until he reached the black ink of his tattoo. It really shouldn’t have turned Dean on as much as it dd.

          He licked his way across the foreign writing, and grazed his teeth in the spaces in between, leaving red marks where his mouth had been. He nipped his way down the writing, and couldn’t resist leaving hickeys whenever Cas’s labored breathing turned into all-out gasps at his ministrations. Dean dug his nails into one side of his waist and pressed his lips to the other, and Castiel wrapped his hands in the lapels of Dean’s jacket and pulled. Dean made his way back up Castiel’s body, his pace achingly slow, their gazes locked and hooded and dark. When their faces were level, Dean hovered above him, unmoving, both of them breathing deeply but lowly. There wasn’t enough air in the car, and it was suddenly very, very warm.

          When they kissed again, it was like waves crashing, practiced and deliberate and passionate and intense. Cas was scratching up Dean’s sides where his fingers had found skin and Dean had both hands covering Castiel’s ass, and they were so busily wrapped up in one another that they didn’t hear the car pull up behind them, and Dean was rolling his hips down onto Cas’s when someone knocked on the driver’s side window behind him and called out,

           “Are you fucking kidding me? You could at least have the decency not to make out right after you call me! Did you think I wouldn’t show?”

          Dean captured Cas’s bottom lip between his teeth and tugged it as he pulled away; Cas gasped when it released, his glasses askew. Dean turned his head, still balanced over Castiel. Sam was at the window, wearing a beanie and his trademark bitchface, waving his hands through the window for their attention, begging them to desist. They all hung suspended there, for a moment; Sam angry and vexed, Dean blank-faced and open-mouthed, Castiel panting and wide-eyed.

          Then Dean broke the spell, laughing mirthlessly with a mix of annoyance and self-deprecation, and scrubbed a hand down his face. He rolled off of Castiel and then sat up in the driver’s seat, gathering himself for a minute before yelling, “Alright, alright!” and waving Sam back so that he could open the door and climb out into the small path he had cleared in the snow that had previously blocked his exit. He leaned against the Impala, reached in and pulled Castiel out beside him, and Sam looked away when Cas leaned heavily on Dean, the pair of them with mussed hair and red lips.

           “I brought shovels,” said Sam in disgust. “I’ve come to dig out your car.”

 

In an hour, they were all sweating and had shed multiple layers of clothing, but at least the Impala was free. Dean and Castiel both thanked Sam relentlessly, and he waved them off with a “Yeah, yeah, just wait until I drive off to have at it on the hood.” Cas blushed, Dean punched his brother on the arm, and Sam laughed loudly and got back into his hideous white truck.

          Cas and Dean began to shrug back into their discarded clothes, overshirts and jackets and one bright red pair of mittens. When they were fully dressed again, Dean raked his hand over his head and asked, “So, uh—Can I drive you home?”

          Castiel half-smiled and laughed shakily. “Yeah, sure. Thank you.”

          When they were both back inside, Dean flipped on the heat and shifted into drive, pulling out onto the newly cleared road.

          “I’m sorry this didn’t pan out…perfect,” said Dean.

          Cas smiled. “It went optimally enough. I certainly enjoyed myself.”

           “Oh yeah?” he asked, chuckling. “And uh, which part was that? The dinner, or the snow-plowing?”

          Dean didn’t take his eyes off the road, but jumped when Cas next spoke; he was suddenly close, his breath fanning over Dean’s neck, and even though he was whispering, Dean could hear him perfectly clearly.

          “I think,” he said softly, voice a low hum, and suddenly Dean felt a hand sliding over his thigh, “It might have been when you—what was it?—corrupted me in the front seat.”

          Dean huffed out a laugh, body tense. “ _I_ corrupted _you_? I’m not the one accosting the driver.”

          Cas’s lips were on his neck. His hand wasn’t doing anything good either. “If you’re complaining, I can stop.”

          “I don’t have a problem with it. I just think we might get to your place before you’re done.”

          “I didn’t say I was going to finish in the car.”

          Dean let out a low whistle. “Oh, man, I am not going to last the ride home.”

          Cas pulled back, grinning wickedly. “I don’t think you’re supposed to.”

          Dean was a wreck by the time they pulled up to Cas’s apartment. Neither of them said a word as they locked the car and hurried up the stairs.

 

The morning dawned still and quiet. Castiel woke up first, rolling over so as to escape the bright, harsh winter sunlight splayed across his face. Dean grunted in sleepy protest when Castiel shifted off his arm, but he did not wake up.

          When Dean finally stumbled out of bed twenty minutes later, he was initially disoriented at his immediate surroundings, because these sheets were silk and purple and he’d just been having the best dream involving blue eyes and wings, but as he blinked himself to full consciousness he realized where he was. He was also suddenly bombarded with the smell of breakfast and someone singing Christmas music (screaming might be the more appropriate term).

          He stumbled out of the bed and, still squinting tiredly, found a pair of sweatpants on the floor. Somewhere in a distant part of his just-awakening brain he recognized that these weren’t his, but he also knew that the pants he’d been wearing would be much less comfortable, so he shoved thoughts of ownership aside and went in search of the kitchen.

          Cas was in there, of course, jeans slung low underneath a dark grey t-shirt, a sliver of skin visible. He was barefoot and singing God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen so loudly that he didn’t hear Dean approach.

          “Is this how you wake everyone up on the holidays?” Dean asked, leaning against the counter behind him, and Cas jumped and turned around.

          “Dean!” he said brightly, not even remotely embarrassed. “I’m making bacon and egg sandwiches. Are you amenable?”

          He was, and he stood beside him and chatted while he worked. They sat down at a small two-person table to eat, and after Dean was finished praising his magnificent cooking (although he used the phrase “fucking _awesome_ ”, and it came out relatively indistinct around his mouthful of sandwich, the sentiment was the same) he looked around and asked, “So are you going back home for Christmas?”

          Cas tensed a little and looked down at his plate, suddenly very preoccupied with his breakfast. “No.”

          “Why not?”

          Cas sighed and slumped forward a little. “My uncle will be there. He made it perfectly clear that he wanted nothing to do with me after I dropped out of the army. There’s no point flying out to Illinois just to get left out in the cold.”

          Dean frowned. “Cas, I—” And he knew it was probably too soon to say it, but Cas was stuck alone on Christmas and his father always worked through the holidays and it was just him and Sam and before he could stop himself, he blurted out, “Do you want to come for Christmas?”

          Castiel looked up, and his expression was guarded, fighting hope. “Are you serious?”

          Dean blushed. “I mean, if you want to—I get it if you’re doing your own thing, but—I mean, Sammy and I were gonna spend it alone anyway, and now he’s got this girlfriend who’s coming over and if you wanted—”

          Cas smiled then, wide and sincere, like Dean had offered him the sun. “I would love to.”

          Dean muttered, “Alright, cool, awesome,” and then changed the subject, and they enjoyed a pleasant morning after that. Cas had work at noon, and Dean even helped him wrap up in a scarf and his overlarge trench coat over today’s sweater (green, with Santa riding a sleigh on the front) and kissed him goodbye when they parted at the front door. He got into his car and watched Cas walk toward his, because yeah, he was wearing his usual tight jeans and it was the holiday season so Dean was indulging himself.

          Sam didn’t say anything when Dean got home. But when Dean said, “Oh, I’ve got a friend coming over for Christmas,” Sam smiled knowingly, and when Dean left the room to avoid that smirk, Sam muttered, “Cool. You deserve something good.”

 

Sam was a total dork at Christmas. He put up mistletoe every five feet (“I’m not kissing you under that, Samsquatch,” said Dean) and covered the walls in garland and the furniture in tinsel (“I’m never getting this glitter off me! Come on!”) and spent two hours decorating the Christmas tree he set up in the corner, bedecked with glistening orbs and tacky knickknacks from the dollar store, and he even found some weirdly somber-looking angel to put on top of the tree. It changed color every five seconds and spun in a slow circle.

          Dean was showering when the doorbell first rang, and he panicked for about five seconds until Sam knocked on the door and shouted, “It’s just Jess!” and a female voice called, “Hi, Dean!”

          He finished quickly anyway and pulled on jeans and a plain green sweater, and grumbled when Sam put a Santa hat on his head but did not remove it. Jessica Moore looked stunning a white dress that fell to just above her knees and had lacy long sleeves. Sam said she needed a tiara, but Jess just laughed and put on a Santa hat, too.

          Castiel came by at half past three, and donned the apparently obligatory festive hat with good grace. He was wearing a red sweater with a green Christmas tree on the front, and where the tree was adorned with decorations were actual puffy balls of string and cotton sticking out of the front. Dean thought it was kind of revolting in and of itself, but he’d be lying if he said that he didn’t find Cas’s affinity for ugly Christmas sweaters really endearing.

          He kissed Cas at the door and introduced him to Jessica. He and Dean had seen each other every day since that first time, and he already knew Sam (Dean was often asleep when Cas came to the door). He handed him a glass of eggnog, and Cas drank it without even blinking, which was a little surprising because there was possibly more rum than eggnog in the cup and Cas didn’t look like a heavy drinker, but he could evidently give Dean a run for his money in holding liquor.

          Everyone kissed under mistletoe a lot, courtesy of Sam’s obsessive decorating. Sometimes, if no one else was in the room, Dean would let it go on longer than the cursory second, not that Castiel seemed to mind.  Cas was really into the poppers and kept ringing the golden bells Sam had hung on the door, and it slowly became very apparent that he hadn’t had a lot of proper Christmases.

          They sat down to dinner at five; it was a bit of a tight fit because the table was small (they didn’t often have guests—well, no guests that went anywhere but Dean’s room and were in and out by morning) but they managed it and nobody seemed to mind the limited space, even though they bumped elbows trying to pass the mashed potatoes and there was a tense, awkward moment in which that was Sam’s leg, not Cas’s, but everyone passed the meal with raucous, slightly tipsy laughter and no complaints.

          Afterwards, they all sat down in front of the television and turned on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer of all things, but it was Christmas and everyone was feeling light and full and too happy to be bothered. After awhile, long after Dean had dispensed of his hat (leaving him with horribly messy hair that Cas at one point leaned over and whispered that he liked, but Dean wasn’t paying as much attention to the compliment as the fact that Cas nibbled quickly on his ear before pulling away) Sam and Jessica bid them goodnight and went off, yawning and staggering, to Sam’s room. Seemingly unconsciously, Cas shifted closer on the couch almost instantly, and when Dean ran one hand through his hair and tugged lazily on his sweater, he easily shifted and moved back against Dean’s chest. Dean continued his slow strokes through Cas’s hair, and he smiled sedately and leaned into the touch.

          Just when everyone had reached the Land of Misfit Toys, Dean leaned in and whispered, “Can I give you your present now?”

          Cas twisted in place and looked up at him, lips parted. He looked a little like he hadn’t been given a present in a long time.

          “Sure. Give me one second. I have to go out to my car.” He got up off the couch and left the apartment, and Dean swung his legs off the couch and went to search around in his room.

          They met back in the living room, sitting facing each other on the same couch as before. Cas’s eyes were glinting with something like anticipation, but his gaze was trained on Dean’s face. Jesus, he was more excited about giving Dean his present than receiving one in return.

          “You first,” Cas said in a rush, and thrust a box into Dean’s chest. Dean dropped his own behind his back and reached around to grab Cas’s offering, and Cas pulled back and looked at Dean like an excited puppy.

          Dean unwrapped the gold ribbon slowly, lifting the lid of the identically-colored box with a similarly sloth-like pace, mostly just to get Cas’s excitement to peak. When he finally uncovered it, he forgot his teasing enjoyment as he looked down at the shining silver watch.

          “It was my father’s,” said Castiel quietly, still watching Dean closely. “There was a gold one, too, but this seemed more your style.” He half-smiled. “Maybe you’ll be on time to pick me up one of these days.”

          Dean was still speechless, and worry lines began to crease Castiel’s forehead.

          “If you don’t—”

          Dean interrupted him with a hard, surging kiss that knocked him backward so that he was lying flat on the couch. Dean licked into his mouth quickly, with purpose; Cas had a tight grip on his hair and Dean thought he might have forgotten about reciprocation completely if Dean didn’t suddenly pull off and sit up, dragging Castiel with him and saying, “Okay, your turn.”

          “Okay,” Cas repeated, unfocused but obviously riding a buzz that wasn’t entirely from the copious amounts of heavily-spiked eggnog they’d drunk.

          Dean laughed at his dazed expression and handed him a crudely-wrapped red box, bigger than Cas’s, which Cas took with interest and Dean watched with trepidation. He’d never been much good at giving presents. Cas made quicker work of it than Dean had, and within seconds had the lid off.

          He stared down at the collection within, shifting through carefully and studying each item.

          “It’s a starter’s kit,” Dean explained quickly when Cas didn’t say anything. “For when you get to be a professor.”

          Cas ran his hands over everything, one by one: A few famous Latin texts, a pen that looked like a quill, an blue Argyle sweater that matched his eyes exactly, a notebook with Enochian on the cover in what looked like Dean’s own hand (Cas blushed when he translated the words, and sincerely hoped nobody else knew the language; having “Can I bend you over your desk after hours?” displayed publicly probably would be bad for his career), and a set of dark-rimmed glasses.

           “Those aren’t real,” Dean said, still talking too fast. “The lenses are fake, so you can put your prescription ones in. But I thought—” he cleared his throat—“—I thought you’d look sexy in rimmed glasses.” Another blush was creeping up his face.

          Cas mouthed soundlessly, letting everything fall back into the box. Dean’s face was getting redder by the second.

           “If you don’t like it, I can—I mean, I’m sorry, you said you wanted to teach, so I just thought—but—”

           “Dean,” Cas intoned, lowly but solemnly, “Shut _up_.”

          Everything went flying when Cas surged forward, pinning Dean to the back of the couch. Dean was stunned for a minute, but caught on quickly enough. Cas crawled clumsily onto his lap, hands on his face and neck and shoulders, knees on either side of Dean’s waist, and Dean clamped down on his hips, thumbs rubbing into the skin exposed when Cas lifted his arms. Cas was a little frenzied, but Dean didn’t mind at all when Castiel was licking over his lips and into his mouth, and Dean arched up into him when he pulled at his hair. They lasted maybe five minutes before Cas ground down his hips, and Dean pulled back to stop him.

           “What? What?” Cas asked, hands still pulling at him, and Dean made an aborted moan when wandering hands found his ass.

           “I just—we’re in the living room, baby—Sam could hear us or walk out or—”

           “Right—right,” gasped Cas, and he looked so _delectable_ all compliant and wrecked that Dean groaned and attached his mouth to his neck, and quickly lost all will to stop when Cas started panting and chanting his name.

           “Fuck—okay—my room,” said Dean, when Cas started getting a little too loud, and Cas immediately scrambled off him. Dean stood, too, grabbing Cas’s hand and pulling him out of the living room. They left everything on the couch and on the floor, and forgot to even turn off the TV.

          In the morning, everyone was singing Christmas tunes.


End file.
